Rebbe’s Surprising “Refuah Shelaima”

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives.

Since we are now in the week of Parshas Lech Lecha, and Lech Lecha is called a freiliche week, a freilich'e parsha. We went through Tishrei, baruch Hashem — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Simchas Torah, a simchadike chodesh. Then we went into Marcheshvan. Last week was Parshas Noach. Parshas Noach, the Frierdiker Rebbe called it a kalamutne week, a kalamutne Shabbos — I remember that expression exactly — that it's a little sad, because it speaks about the mabul, the flood. But now it's Parshas Lech Lecha, the first Yid, Avraham Avinu — it's a freilich'e week.

So I will share with you a story soon that I found in the Rebbe Mindel Archives. I don't know if this story is famous or not, I don't know, but I found it, and I'll read it to you.

It says in this parsha that Malki-Tzedek — Malki-Tzedek was the son of Noach's son Shem — Melech Shalem, he was the king of Yerushalayim, and he brought out bread and wine. This was after the war with Avraham, as you learn in the parsha. Afterwards, there was a custom that they ate bread and wine. So Rabbi Mindel has a small article, and he wrote: why don't you say l'chaim on bread? Why do you say l'chaim davka on wine?

So here I'm going to read you what Rabbi Mindel wrote, and what the Rebbe added in his hagahos.

Rabbi Mindel writes: the reason why we make l'chaim on wine — it was customary to give wine to a person mourning over the loss of a relative. In order to differentiate, to make a difference between the sad occasion and the happier moment, when we drink wine and say l'chaim, we say that this is a happy time. And this is why davka on wine, because wine was also given when people were mourning.

Then my father-in-law writes that the Gemara in Sanhedrin tells us another reason, describing the procedure of an execution of someone who was condemned to death. On the way to the execution, they would give the convict a cup of wine as an act of grace, so that he should become intoxicated — and that would make a difference between the cup of death and the cup of life. So when we say l'chaim, l'chaim means that we're happy, this is a happy time — and that is the difference between death and life. That's why we say l'chaim on wine, not on bread.

Another reason — here the Rebbe added a word in the hagahos. Another reason we say l'chaim on wine and not on bread is because we learned last week that Noach got drunk, and the klalos — the curses — happened, as we know from the Chumash, what happened after he got drunk. So when we say l'chaim, we say it only in moderation, to show that the power that caused the klalos when they were drunk — so we say l'chaim on wine only in moderation, so that it should be a bracha, a l'chaim.

There are many more reasons, but the idea is that wine has a power for good and a power for bad, and that's why we say l'chaim — so that it shouldn't be harmful.

Since we're talking here about wine, I want to share with you a story that I found in the archives. It is written in Yiddish; I'm going to read it to you and translate it into English.

The Rebbe, after the farbrengen of Seudas Moshiach, years ago, gave Rabbi Mindel a bottle of wine and said to him, "This is a siman for a refuah — it should be for a cure." He didn't know what the Rebbe meant — did he mean a refuah ha'nefesh, a spiritual cure, or did he mean a refuah ha'guf, a physical cure. Years passed, and the wine stood in his home.

So he thought: the Rebbe didn't mean for the wine to just stay home — you have to give it to people. So he made a big melave malka, and they announced that at this melave malka they would give out the wine of the Rebbe for a refuah. So many, many people came to this melave malka, and they took the wine for their wives and their children.

Months later, a Jew came to him and told him that he took the wine — his wife was sick, he gave her the wine, and she had a refuah, mamash a neis. He also said that a Sephardic Jew came to him and said that he had to go through a very serious operation, and he wanted the wine from the Rebbe to drink. So he told him, "You're not a shomer Shabbos — you have your laundromat open on Shabbos. If you're mechalel Shabbos, when you touch the wine, the wine becomes yayin nesech" — like a non-Jew touching the wine — "and when you drink it, you'll have an aveira. Promise me that you will close your store on Shabbos, and I'll give you the wine."

He closed the laundromat on Shabbos — he became a shomer Shabbos — and of course he gave him the wine, and he became healthy. The doctors were amazed, because it was a very serious operation. But he had a problem — a big mesirus nefesh — to have the store closed, because I guess he lost a lot of business. The store was not in a Jewish area, and the main business was on Shabbos.

So, baruch Hashem, he was geholfen — he used to have a dry cleaner, and now he switched to dry cleaning with chemicals. It cost him a lot of money — something special that nobody else had — and he was very matzliach. He became a parnasah ba'al choveh. So this wine became a refuah ha'nefesh for him — he became a shomer Shabbos — and it also became a refuah ha'guf.

Now, I want to share with you another story that I was involved in. Here in Crown Heights, somebody lived — I believe on Union Street — and he was not in chinuch, he was in insurance. The Rebbe used to give, after Pesach, after Acharon shel Pesach, to guests who came from out of town, a bottle of wine. He passed by kos shel bracha — this was on Acharon shel Pesach, I think — and the Rebbe gave him a bottle of wine. He didn't know why — he's not in chinuch — but the Rebbe gave it to him, so he kept the wine.

This happened, and years later he still had the wine — he always used to say, "it's the Rebbe's wine." Years later, he comes for dollars, and he takes a dollar from the Rebbe, and the Rebbe tells him, "You should have a refuah shleimah." He was shocked — he didn't know what to do. A refuah shleimah? He's not sick.

So he came to my home — I was close with him — we went down to the basement, I remember, and he said, "I'm very nervous. I'm not sick, and the Rebbe told me I should have a refuah shleimah. I don't know what to do." So I said to him, "You're speaking to the wrong person — I would also be nervous." But, I said, Rabbi Nissan Mindel is in my home now, sitting in the dining room where I'm sitting now — "go ask him, tell him the story."

He went upstairs and told him the story, that the Rebbe gave him a dollar and said he should have a refuah shleimah, and he didn't know what to do. Rabbi Mindel started to smile and said to him, "I want to tell you something — sit down."

The Rebbe — the Frierdiker Rebbe — was in Eretz Yisroel, I think it was 1928, and when he left Eretz Yisroel he was on a ship. He was told, I think two or three days later, in the month of Elul, that there was a massacre in Chevron. The Arabs killed Yidden — it was terrible. And when they told the Rebbe about the Chevron massacre, the Rebbe became sick. He didn't eat, he fainted — the Rebbe wasn't well, especially upon hearing such news.

So they were looking for a doctor. They found one doctor on the ship, his name was Dr. Wallach. Dr. Wallach was a German, very religious, a very erlicher doctor, and a very famous, important doctor. They told him, "Please, can you come — the Rebbe is not well." So he came to the Rebbe, and the first thing he said to the Rebbe was, "Rebbe, I want to ask you for mechila — I want to ask you for forgiveness." Because it says that the Eibershter brings the refuah before the makah — if someone, chas v'shalom, is not well, there is already a cure prepared for him, otherwise the Eibershter would not have made him sick. "So," he said, "if I wouldn't have been on the ship, you wouldn't have gotten sick. I'm a doctor, I'm here to cure — so I'm sorry that I'm on this ship."

That's what Rabbi Mindel told this person — I think this story is written somewhere. Rabbi Mindel told him, "You should be happy that the Rebbe told you that you should have a refuah shleimah, because maybe, chas v'shalom, there was a gezeirah on you, and the Rebbe was makdim a refuah to the makah — by the Rebbe giving a bracha, he was makdim the refuah, so that the Rebbe should help, that eventually you should be okay, if anything had to happen."

Well, he was maybe a little more satisfied, but he still wasn't fully satisfied. This was a Sunday. That Wednesday, Hatzalah took him to the hospital. He had internal bleeding, was very sick, and he was there three months. He got out of it, baruch Hashem, and you saw him not long ago — he lives in Flatbush, and he became well.

A month or two later, Rabbi Mindel — the wine that the Rebbe gave him, which he didn't know why he had — he came over to Rabbi Mindel, I was there, and he said, "Let's say l'chaim on that wine."

So I wanted to share with you this story. The Rebbe says that you should always say l'chaim, and l'chaim is spelled lamed, ches, yud, yud, mem — two yuds. When they're together, two yuds, they have to be equal — not one on top and one on the bottom — it has to be that we're all equal together, as it should be, only simchas. And we should see the Rebbe, and the Rebbe should give us wine again, and dollars again, and we should be zoche to the geulah sheleimah bimeheirah v'yameinu, amen.

And im yirtzeh Hashem, next Thursday night, we will continue our weekly program.